Journal of Environmental Management 139 (2014) 188e199

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Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

A Modified Actor-Power-Accountability Framework (MAPAF) for analyzing decentralized forest governance: Case study from Ethiopia Abrar Juhar Mohammed*, Makoto Inoue Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 12 July 2013 Received in revised form 4 March 2014 Accepted 10 March 2014 Available online

This paper posits a Modified Actor-Power-Accountability Framework (MAPAF) that makes three major improvements on the Actor-Power-Accountability Framework (APAF) developed by Agrawal and Ribot (1999). These improvements emphasize the nature of decentralized property rights, linking the outputs of decentralization with its outcomes and the inclusion of contextual factors. Applying MAPAF to analyze outputs and outcomes from two major decentralized forest policies in Ethiopia, i.e., delegation and devolution, has demonstrated the following strengths of the framework. First, by incorporating vital bundles of property rights into APAF, MAPAF creates a common ground for exploring and comparing the extent of democratization achieved by different decentralizing reforms. Second, the inclusion of social and environmental outcomes in MAPAF makes it possible to link the output of decentralization with local level outcomes. Finally, the addition of contextual factors enhances MAPAF’s explanatory power by providing room for investigating exogenous factors other than democratization that contribute to the outcomes of decentralization reforms. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Decentralization Environmental outcome Social outcome Delegation Devolution Ethiopia

1. Introduction Over the last two to three decades, 10e12% of the world’s natural forests have been managed in a form of decentralization, which also holds true in at least 21 sub-Saharan African countries (Smoke, 2003). In line with the length of time that decentralization has been in force, different frameworks have been developed to analyze the extent and outcomes of decentralization. Among these frameworks, the Actor-Power-Accountability Framework (APAF) developed by Agrawal and Ribot (1999) has been the most influential in analyzing extent of democratization achieved by decentralized natural resource governance (Coleman and Fleischman, 2012). The APAF encompasses three vital dimensions that underlie all acts of decentralization: actors, powers, and accountability. In particular, the framework considers the powers and accompanying resources that are actually transferred to lower-level actors, the local-level entities receiving powers, and their relationship to the population to determine whether an autonomous domain of decision making actually exists around issues of local significance and to understand the extent to which these are both representative of and downwardly accountable to local people (Larson and Ribot,

* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.J. Mohammed). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.03.002 0301-4797/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

2004). In line with this mandate of APAF, its application has also been largely for assessing existence of autonomous downwardly accountable local actors/institutions in the natural resource governance arena (for example Ribot, 2002; Oyono, 2004a; Djogo and Syaf, 2003; Ribot et al., 2006). Presence of such domain is argued to be a prerequisite for achieving positive social and environmental outcome (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999; Ribot, 2002; Larson, 2003). Although the APAF has been a potent tool for analyzing the extent of democratization as aforementioned, we argue that there are three major shortcomings of the framework that need to be addressed to make it a better tool for analyzing natural resource governance. The first one is, the APAF doesn’t explicitly provide analytical space for assessing key aspects of forest governance, i.e., property right issues (Larson and Soto, 2008). This is despite the fact that decision making power on property rights that can be held by a wide variety of actors is a major vehicle by which power is transferred among actors in decentralized forest governance (Acheson, 2006). The second limitation of the APAF is in relation to its scope. Possibly in reflection to the general trend in natural resource governance that gave much emphasis to the potential of local resource governance for sustainable forest conservation and rural development (Ostrom, 1990; Berkes, 1989; Bromley, 1992), the APAF also presumed empowering local institution to be a

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prerequisite for such outcomes (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999; Ribot, 2002; Larson, 2003). In reality, however, democratization may have devastating impact for the society and/or the forest (Larson, 2003; Larson et al., 2010). Opening greater decision making space for local people, for example, has resulted in indiscriminate removal of the forest in Indonesia (Tacconi, 2007). Therefore, in addition to assessing the extent of democratization, the scope of APAF needs to be broadened to check whether such trend is leading to positive social and environmental outcome (Andersson and Gibson, 2006; Coleman and Fleischman, 2012). This is particularly important in developing nations where such reforms are undertaken mainly to achieve positive social and environmental outcomes (Larson and Soto, 2008). Finally, linking outcome with the extent of democratization demands consideration of other contextual factors such as historical, social, biophysical and/or economic factors that may also influence the outcome from the governance regime (Tacconi, 2007; Ribot, 2004). For example in Bolivia, local people were unable to take full advantage of livelihood opportunities created by democratization of forest governance due to lack of access to financial assets and markets (Pacheco, 2004). Similarly in Indonesia, historic economic marginalization of some groups resulted in opportunistic behavior by these groups towards valuable forest products after being empowered through decentralization (Djogo and Syaf, 2003). Hence, without consideration of the context in which decentralization is implemented, the outcomes neither can fully be attributed to nor explained by extent of democratization. The first objective of this article, therefore, is to introduce an improved analytical tool named Modified Actor-PowerAccountability Framework (MAPAF) that improves the original APAF in the aforementioned concepts (Fig. 1). Similar to APAF, the MAPAF also encompass the three fundamental elements of decentralization, i.e., actors, power and accountability (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999), which are used to assess extent of democratization. Unlike APAF, however, the power analysis of MAPAF explicitly addresses decision making power on three salient bundles of property right i.e., management, exclusion and withdrawal right that are argued to be fundamental determinants of

Fig. 1. A Modified Actor-Power-Accountability framework (MAPAF). Source: Authors construct: inspired by the APAF of Agrawal and Ribot (1999).

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outcome from the forest governance (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001). Beyond analyzing the extent of democratization, which is the major purpose of APAF and termed output in the MAPAF, MAPAF also links this output with social and environmental outcomes from the governance regime. Furthermore, the MAPAF gives due consideration for the social, cultural, economic, political and technological contexts that, in addition to the actor, power, accountability dynamics, have implication on the outcomes. These contextual factors influence the interactions between local people and forest by limiting what is physically, economically, socially and culturally feasible and/or desirable (Edward and Steins, 1999; Ostrom, 1990). The second objective of the paper is, after theoretically elucidating the MAPAF, to show it’s applicability by employing it to analyze extent of democratization and social and environmental outcomes from two major decentralized forest governances, i.e., devolution and delegation, in Ethiopia. By analytically investigating who holds power in which property right type, the case studies demonstrate the importance of emphasis on property right in order to better explain outcome from decentralization. The case studies also reveal that even if democratic forest governance e a key parameter that APAF tend to assess e is achieved as in the case of devolution, it does not guarantee positive social and environmental outcome. Rather, a context sensitive analysis that give due emphasis to the broad social, economic, political context do explain the outcome better. Two approaches, desktop research and case study, are utilized to achieve these two objectives. Desk top research is undertaken to construct MAPAF and elaborate the different concepts used and their linkage by reviewing literature. The application of the MAPAF is shown by employing it to analyze case studies. The paper is organized as follows. The next section elaborates on the MAPAF and its elements followed by a methodology for the case studies. The fourth section presents the result from application of MAPAF in two case studies in Ethiopia. In light of these results, the fifth section discusses the strength of the MAPAF for analyzing decentralized forest governance. Finally, the study concludes with its core findings and suggestions for future works.

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2. A Modified Actor-Power-Accountability Framework (MAPAF) In the context of natural resource governance, decentralization can be defined as any act by which a central government cedes decision-making rights over resources to lower-level actors and institutions (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999), and in the process, reshapes power and accountability relationships among involved actors (Devarajan et al., 2007; Yilmaz et al., 2010). It is a political and economic process that implies a redistribution of power and resources (Larson and Soto, 2008) to different actors, including community organizations (Chhatre, 2008). Decentralization reforms come in many forms, including delegation and devolution (Yilmaz et al., 2010). Delegation is the transfer of decision-making power to a semi-autonomous organization that is not a political and administrative extension of a government (Oyono, 2004b). When decision-making power is transferred to lower-level elected or appointed leaders (Oyono, 2004b) or to communities (Larson and Soto, 2008), it is called devolution. These forms of decentralization are not monolithic. To understand them, it is therefore useful to break them down into their main elements (Smoke, 2003). The three fundamental elements of any form of decentralization are the actors involved, the types of decision-making powers transferred, and the accountability relations of actors (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999) as shown in Fig. 1 and discussed in the sub-sections. 2.1. Actors The decentralization of natural resource governance is a strategy to facilitate the transfer of power among actors, bringing new actors into power in the process. Therefore, it is imperative to identify the actors who are involved in policy implementation (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001). Key actors involved in decentralized forest governance can be placed into one or more categories: citizens/grassroots as well as policymakers and frontier providers from central to local level such as politicians, lawmakers, regulators, government ministries and their lower level extensions, the private sector, cooperatives, foresters, extension workers and development agents (Devarajan et al., 2007; Yilmaz et al., 2010). Each of these actors typically has particular accountability relationships and certain types of powers (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999). 2.2. Decision-making power over property rights The salient power, a vehicle through which actor/s (potentate) influence the behavior of another actor (subordinate) among the aforementioned actors to attain certain outcome they desire from the devolved forest governance system (Krott et al., 2013), is via decision making power on different bundles of property rights (Acheson, 2006). A property right, as defined by Agrawal and Ostrom (2001), is a relationship among actors with respect to things such as natural resources. Particularly, ability of the potentate to influence the behaviors of the subordinate with respect to managing the forest, withdrawing resource from the forest as well as exclusion of others from such rights have been identified to be key with respect to defining the empowered actor/s (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001). Rights, however, are the product of rules. While rights are the authority to undertake particular actions related to a specific domain, rules are the prescription to create authorization (Schlager and Ostrom, 1992). Therefore, decision-making powers on property rights can be further unpacked into the power to create new rules or modify old ones, the power to implement the rules, and the power to ensure compliance with the rules (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999). The legal structure of decentralization, which is mostly

inferred from official documents, reveals the type and extent of decentralization that is officially being implemented (Larson, 2003). The legal structure may not, however, tell the whole history. Whatever the official central government policy may be, the actual power held by actors at different levels may be constrained because higher-level government institutions and personnel can often stand in the way of its implementation (Larson, 2003). 2.3. Accountability relations Accountability, a mechanism through which counter powers are exercised by those subject to actors holding decentralized power (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999), is a principle element of decentralization that assures good governance (Ackerman, 2004; Ribot, 2004). These accountability mechanisms can either be vertical, resulting in downward or upward accountability, or horizontal, whereby the power holder needs to report to same-level officials and agencies (Ackerman, 2004). Whether vertical or horizontal, all modes of accountability are relational. To understand the nature of accountability, therefore, it is necessary to examine the actors between whom relations of accountability exist (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999). The most commonly cited mechanism through which actors hold power holders accountable is via electoral process, a vertical accountability mechanism. Elections, however, occur once every few years, force an incredible diversity of opinions and evaluations together onto a single ballot, and only hold elected officials accountable (Ackerman, 2004) when it is certainly possible that in a particular decentralization effort powers are transferred to actors other than elected officials (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999). In the latter case which is common in the forestry sector of developing nation, election should be complemented or strengthened by horizontal accountability mechanisms in which the empowered actors need to report to elected officials (Ackerman, 2004; Ribot, 2003). For election and other vertical accountability mechanisms to be effective; both the supply side of the accountability e the obligation of public authorities to explain publicly, fully and fairly how they are conducting responsibilities that affect the public in important ways e as well as the demand side of accountability in which ordinary citizens and/or civil-society organizations demand accountability; play pivotal role. Particularly, the demand side accountability or social accountability mechanisms such as public meetings, citizen juries, forums for various social groups, multichoice referenda accompanied by active public debate and discussion, and activism by non-governmental organizations and other community groups are decisive in providing voice for the marginalized and poor groups (Yilmaz et al., 2010). 2.4. Outputs from decentralization The output from decentralization reform can be of four types: Type I is when both discretionary decision making power transferred and downward accountability are very low; in Type ii, discretion is high but lacks accountabilityethis combination may actually create perverse incentives for local governments, making them vulnerable to capture by elites or prone to reckless decisionmaking; Type iii happens when there is low discretion with high accountability mechanisms where countries are more focused on establishing accountability structures for local governments resulting in overloading local governments; The last one and the one decentralization aspires to achieve is Type iv or democratization in which local governments have a high degree of discretionary power accompanied by a high degree of accountability towards citizens (Yilmaz et al., 2010). In reality, the later happens rarely, especially in developing nations. For example, in his fifteen-country comparative study, Ribot (2004) found that local actors either hold

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significant powers but are not downwardly accountable or they are accountable to their population but hold no significant powers. As discussed in the introduction section, the original APAF has been an effective tool to explore the type of output from the given decentralization reform or policy. The MAPAF extends such analysis to link it to local level social and environmental outcome which is discussed in the next section. 2.5. Outcomes from decentralization The ultimate goal for the democratization of forest governance, particularly in developing nations, is to reap positive social outcomes such as poverty alleviation and the improvement of local livelihoods, and positive environmental outcomes, such as the improvement and/or conservation of forests (Larson and Soto, 2008). Decentralization is expected to contribute to positive social and environmental outcomes by reducing administrative and management transaction costs, using the proximity of local participants to decision-makers, local ownership of decisions that matter to them and access to local skills and information (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999). It is also argued that empowering local people in local decisions results in more effective local investments and management, and ultimately, in more socially and environmentally sustainable development (Ribot, 2002, 2003). The type of output from decentralized forest governance affects the livelihood e a means of gaining a living (Chambers and Conway, 1991) e of local people, specifically the poor and vulnerable one, through its impact on the power and resource distribution. In fact, one of the major reasons for the livelihoods of the poor and very poor groups to be vulnerable is because of their impotence to have a say in decision that affects their livelihood. This can be overturned by reshuffling powerful actors and making the new or existing actors accountable to the poor and very poor. In addition, the output from decentralization can directly affect the capital available for livelihood in four ways, i.e., that forest can contribute for livelihood security and improved wellbeing, i.e., by redistributing access to, and benefits from, forest resources; by making transfer payments to forest dwellers who protect forests’ environmental services and finally by increasing the value of forest production and products through technologies (Sunderlin et al., 2005). The overall livelihood outcomes, however, is not solely dependent on what the forest offers for the poor and very poor. Rather, it also depends on the vulnerability context faced by the household and the different forms of capitals, i.e., natural, human, physical, financial or social capitals (Scoones, 1998), that the household possesses (Baumann, 2002). In addition to its positive social contribution, sustainable forest governance needs to be environmentally viable. Forests are common pool resources, i.e., they are subtractable e forest resources taken by one individual will not be available for others e and difficult to exclude others from accessing and/or withdrawing resources from the forest (Ostrom, 1990). The sustainability of forest ecosystems, therefore, depends on sound management practices, efficient utilization and effective protection against deforestation and forest degradation (Acharya and Dangi, 2009). The outputs from decentralization do have implication in all of these. For example in Indonesia, empowered citizens preferred to generate immediate income from the forest rather than to conserve and utilize it in a more sustainable way (Tacconi, 2007) whereas in Mexico empowerment has resulted in improved forest condition (Coleman and Fleischman, 2012). 2.6. Contextual factors Democratization of forest governance is an important approach to achieve socially and environmentally viable forest governance.

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However, it is not a guarantee by itself (Tacconi, 2007; Larson et al., 2010). In some context, it may lead to polarization towards one outcome at the cost of the other as in the aforementioned Indonesian case. Such outcomes can be explained by incorporating contextual factors into the analysis of decentralization. Contextual factors are the social, cultural, economic, political and technological environments which can affect the interactions between local people and forest by what is physically, economically, socially and culturally feasible and/or desirable (Edward and Steins, 1999; Ostrom, 1990). For example, empower local people may be constrained to generate income from the forest because of lack of appropriate technology and/or market (Pacheco, 2004). In another case, they may prefer to maximize their benefit owing to the socioeconomic context they are living that demands them to urgently fulfill their basic needs as in poverty, or the historical context that may create mistrust on the security of the devolved forest right (Djogo and Syaf, 2003). All or only few of the aforementioned contextual factors can be decisive in affecting the social and environmental outcome from the forest. 3. Methods for the case studies 3.1. Study site description Ethiopia is one of the African countries currently engaged in implementing some form of decentralization. Since its promulgation in 1995, the current Ethiopian constitution provides latitude for the decentralization of power to governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and Ethiopia’s forest sector is no exception. Delegation and devolution are the two major forms of decentralized forest governance that are currently being implemented in the country (Mohammed and Inoue, 2013). The implementation of these two decentralization reforms have been undertaken by diverse actors that can be categorized as local actor, intermediate actor and distant actor respectively depending on their proximity to the grass root populace (Fig. 2). Two cases representing devolution and delegation were selected from Oromia region, where 70% of the natural high forest of the country is located. The Gare Arera Peasant Association (PA) was selected as the devolution case study, and the Tutu PA was selected for the delegation case study. Gare Arera PA is located adjacent to Chilimo Forest, where Participatory Forest Management (PFM) is being undertaken, while Tutu PA is located on the periphery of Jibat Forest, where the delegation form of decentralization is being implemented. Both Jibat Forest and Chilimo Forest are dry Afromontane forests with more or less similar species compositions and potential livelihood resources. The natural forest is dominated by Juniperus procera and Podocarpus falcatus (Mohammed and Inoue, 2012a). 3.2. Data collection and analysis The data collection method for the study is comprised of document analysis, open discussions, semi-structured interviews, and a socioeconomic survey. Open ended interviews were conducted with 44 actors from the federal to the grassroots level, and subjects were purposefully selected to investigate the extent of democratization achieved. The semi-structured questionnaires and household socioeconomic surveys were administered to a total of 157 households from the two Pas (socioeconomic description of the households is provided as Supplementary Material). Stratified random sampling was used to select households from each of four wealth classes that were categorized using simple wealth ranking. The semi-structured interviews were used to collect data on households’ vulnerabilities and coping strategies and what forest

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Fig. 2. Decentralized forest governance structure of Ethiopia e with emphasis on Oromia regional state.

products were important for the households. Data on income from crop production, livestock production, social networks and forest for the previous fiscal year were collected using structured questionnaire interviews. Household capital in 2003 for Gare Arera and in 2006 for Tutu (one year before the FCs signed formal agreements with the government to manage, protect and use the forest in Gare Arera and one year before the forest was delegated for enterprise in Tutu) and current capital levels were collected to assess changes after decentralization on vital non-forest forms of capital. These forms of capital were identified from the aforementioned data on coping mechanisms and income generation. Data triangulation was employed to minimize errors due to recall problem. Data on change in vital forest related benefits identified through aforementioned semi-structured questionnaire were collected through structured questionnaire interview which is triangulated with FC’s archival records. Three satellite images were utilized to collect data on environmental outcomes. The images were obtained from the United State Geological Survey database (USGS) (http:// earthexplorer.usgs.gov/). All the three images were from Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM þ) in 2003, 2007 and 2011, at 30 m ppi. The data were collected in September and October 2011 and January and February 2012. Pattern matching techniques were used to analyze the data on the output from devolution. For data on coping mechanisms, vulnerability, livelihood capitals as well as income from different livelihood activities; simple descriptive statistics was used. A oneway ANOVA was used to analyze the significance of impact of decentralization on the important capitals. The Bonferroni, Scheffe, and Sidak test was used to check the significance of differences in livelihood change among the different wealth categories after decentralization. The aforementioned data analyses were undertaken using the statistical software Stata 12. Satellite images were analyzed using ArcGIS 10. 4. Result of application of MAPAF 4.1. Outputs from devolved and delegated forest governance 4.1.1. Case 1 The Gare Arera: devolution The members and leaders of Forest Cooperatives (FC) and Forest User Groups (FUG), the Woreda Agriculture and Rural Development Office (WARDO), woreda governments, regional governments and

NGOs all play a considerable role in devolution. Communities in and around Chilimo Forest signed the first agreement with the WARDO in 2004. An international NGO called Farm Africa played a pivotal role in advocating for both sides to come to the negotiation table and sign an agreement. Local people were organized into 12 FUGs, eight of which later became FC. The NGO was also the major player in covering the transaction costs of the decentralization process, as well as helping the community in training and livelihood activities. Since devolution, decision-making power on forest management and the exclusion of unlawful forest users has been fully devolved from the WARDO and hired forest guards to the members and leaders of FC/FUG. Members and leaders of FC/FUG are empowered to make decisions on matters including what to plant, where, when and by whom, who should guard the forest, and when. Forest Cooperative’s/Forest User Group’s leaders also have the authority to decide who should be allowed to engage in minor income-generating activities such as selling of fuelwood. They are also authorized to make final decisions on who should receive logs for subsistence uses such as building or repairing houses. In addition, they have the power to resolve conflicts arising from rule infractions as long as the offender abides by the punishments prescribed by leaders. If the offender refuses to accept that punishment, the case is passed to the local woreda court. For income generation by selling timber from plantation, the FC must seek permission from the district-level office of the Oromia Forest and Wildlife Enterprise (OFWE). The FC/FUG members are accountable to their leaders, who are authorized to enforce exclusion and management rules and punish rule breakers. The FC/FUG leaders are in turn downwardly accountable to the FC/FUG members through periodic election as well as to the WARDO who grant its final approval to local votes. The last accountability relationship is the accountability of all FC/ FUGs to the WARDO. According to the agreement signed between the WARDO and the FC/FUGs, the WARDO can take the devolved management, exclusion and withdrawal rights on the forests away from the FC/FUGs if they do not properly manage the forests. After 2007, the OFWE district office has replaced the WARDO. Two additional vital accountability relationships put in place after 2007 are the accountability of the whole enterprise to the regional government, and the upward accountability of the hierarchy of offices within the OFWE (discussed in detail in Section 4.1.2. “Case 2 The Tutu: Delegation”).

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4.1.2. Case 2 The Tutu: delegation The key actors in the delegated forest governance system are the regional government, the Head, Branch and District offices of the Oromia Forest and Wildlife Enterprise (OFWE), the woreda Land and Environmental Protection Office (WLEPO), local people and the woreda court. The regional government has final decision-making power for major issues such as regional proclamations, regulations, projects and action plans from executive offices, as well as for the delegation of authority over the forest of the Oromia region to OFWE and other semi-autonomous organizations (Federal Proclamation No. 1/95; Oromia Proclamation No. 46/2001). The OFWE head office has supreme decision-making power over OFWE affairs. It also makes final decisions on high-value sales from the forest and large expenditures by the OFWE, develops general guidelines for forest management, and hires the heads and management members of the OFWE’s branches and district offices. The role of a branch office is more or less to manage the district forest under it, but it also develops inventory forms and other standards based on specifications from the head office to be used by district office experts. The district offices make decisions on overall operations including guarding, planting, and harvesting. Forest guards and temporary and permanent workers at nurseries and in other forest activities are also hired by district offices. Local people participate as hired laborers in forest management and protection. The important accountability relationships in delegated forest governance are the accountability relationship between the regional government, OFWE, forest guards and local people, as well as within the structure of OFWE. The OFWE is accountable to the regional government as per the agreement they have signed, and the regional government is empowered to withdraw delegated authority from the OFWE if its management is unsatisfactory. The second relationship is the upward accountability of the lower levels of the OFWE to the higher levels, i.e., the district to the branch office and the head office, and the branch office to the head office of the OFWE. This accountability is based on the power of the head office to assign, hire, and dismiss branch and district management personnel. The third accountability relationship is that of local people and guards. Guards have power to take rule breakers to woreda court. The fourth accountability relationship is that of guards to the district office, which can hire and fire them. The fifth accountability relationship is that of the regional government to the local people through elections. 4.1.3. Comparison of outputs from devolution and delegation In devolution, significant decision making power on forest management and protection, as well as withdrawal rights for subsistence and income generation is transferred to actors that are closer to local people or the local people themselves. Even in the case of withdrawal rights on logs that generate substantial income

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for local people, FC leaders and locals can make requests, albeit the final decision is made by OFWE. In addition to decision making, local people can also make their immediate decision makers, i.e., FC leaders, downwardly accountable by evaluation and elections. Therefore, the output from devolution can be said to be closer to Type IV. In delegation, however, the decision making power in all aspects of forest governance, i.e., management, protection and withdrawal rights, is held by the OFWE. In addition, the accountability mechanism is structured to make lower actors upwardly accountable resulting in Type I output (Table 1). 4.2. Social outcomes 4.2.1. Post-devolution changes in capitals for vulnerability coping mechanisms and income generation The important mechanisms that local people in the Gare Arera PA used to cope from adversities such as food shortages, crop failure, and loss of livestock are performing more labor, selling capital and collecting forest products respectively. Performing more labor is a vital coping mechanism for all wealth categories, while selling capital is more important for the rich. Forest products are a vital coping mechanism for the poor and very poor as compared to the rich (Detailed data on vulnerability and coping mechanism is provided as Supplementary Material). Regarding income generation, the forest generates approximately 37% of total household income, followed by agriculture, which contributes approximately 35% of the total household income. Labor-based income is approximately 22% of total income while income from social networks accounts for only approximately 5%. Agriculture-based income from crop and livestock production contributes the majority of households income (52%) for the rich, while forest-based income composed of the sale of logs, fuelwood and forest cooperatives generates 41% and 49% of the total income of the poor and very poor, respectively. In general, it can be concluded that farmland, livestock, job opportunities, income from the forest and forest dividends are salient capital as coping mechanisms and income generation (Table 2). After devolution, the average landholding of the households, average number of houses owned and the average number of livestock to a household increased from 0.82 ha to 0.98 ha, from 0.95 to 1.45 and 2.44 TLU to 2.94 TLU, respectively. Of these, the increment in the number of home ownership was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.01). Within the wealth categories, the increment in number of houses and livestock between the very poor and the rich was significant (p < 0.01). The total improvement in farmland and livestock was much better for the rich compared to the poor and very poor (Table 3). Of the forest products, fuelwood collection is the most important resource for this community, followed by poles for houses and

Table 1 Synthesis of actors and their decision-making powers in the two forms of decentralized forest governance. Decision-making power

Nature of decision-making power

Devolution

Delegation

Management

Rulemaking Execution Judiciary Rule making Execution Judiciary Rule making Execution Judiciary

Leaders and members of FC Leaders and members of FC FC leaders and/or woreda court Leaders and members of FC Leaders and members of FC FC leaders and/or woreda court Woreda ARDa (district office of OFWE), FC Woreda ARDa (district office of enterprise), FC FC leaders and/or woreda court

The three levels of OFWE District office of OFWE Woreda court The three levels of OFWE District office of OFWE and forest guards Woreda court The three levels of OFWE District office of enterprise Woreda court

Exclusion

Withdrawal

Note: OFWE: Oromia Forest and Wildlife Enterprise ARD: Agriculture and Rural Development. FC: Forest Cooperatives. a Before 2007.

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Table 2 Annual income from different livelihood activities for Tutu and Gare Arera. Wealth class

Units

Agriculture Crop production

Rich

ETB % Contribution Middle ETB % Contribution Poor ETB % Contribution Very ETB Poor % Contribution ETB Total % Contribution Total for the two PAs

Livestock and livestock product sales

Employment and labor

Forest-based income

Day laborer wages

Sale of logs

Sale of fuelwood

Forest cooperative dividends

Salary

Social networkbased income

Tutu

Gare

Tutu

Gare

Tutu

Gare

Tutu

Gare

Tutu

Gare

Tutu

Gare

Tutu

Gare

Tutu

Gare

30,225 95 18,592 80 5613 40 7175 56

11,680 41.94 8250 26.99 7111 18.99 3124 12.51 30,253 24.96

1740 5 1620 7 850 6 923 7

2964 10.64 3588 11.74 3422 9.14 2216 8.87 12,222 10.09

0 0 0 0 0 0 642 5

1700 6.10 5258 17.20 4354 11.63 3422 13.70 14,769 12.19

0 0 0 0 4000 29 0 0

1800 6.46 3528 11.54 3028 8.09 3783 15.15 12,165 10.05

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0.00 340 1.11 8960 23.93 3120 12.49 12,445 10.28

0 0 3072 13 3456 24 4147 32

7219 25.92 6144 20.10 4650 12.42 7479 29.94 25,550 21.10

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1889 6.78 1980 6.48 1915 5.11 1834 7.34 7636 6.30

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

600 2.15 1475 4.83 4000 10.68 0 0.00 6093 5.03

75 45.90

6 8.66

1 7.69

5 8.07

0 6.21

13 13.47

0 3.81

0 2.48

1 ETB z $0.056.

income from selling logs. After devolution, the total weekly collection of fuelwood for sale declined from 5 to 3.5, which was statically significant (p < 0.05). Within wealth categories, although the mean decline for the poor (2.5) and very poor (1.7) was much higher than that of the rich (0.5) and middle class (þ0.7), it was not statistically significant. Following increased demand for resources (64%), the post-devolution restrictions on gathering fuelwood for income generation by the leaders of FC (48%) and members (50%) was mentioned as the major reason for the decline. Devolution, however, improved access to other important forest products, such as additional income from selling plantation timber that was nonexistent before devolution was introduced. In addition, local people were allowed to gather logs for building houses and other purposes after getting permission from the FC leaders. Furthermore, training that enhanced the human capital of the FC members was provided at the early stage of devolution. The distribution of these forest products, with the exception of subsistence log-gathering in both cases, i.e., dividend sharing and training, benefited the upper wealth classes compared to the poor and very poor. For example, the per-household average training given to the rich (2.3) was statically significantly higher than that given to the poor (0.85) and very poor (0.7) (P < 0.01). Similarly, the average of the two dividends awarded to the rich (7300 ETB) was also much higher than those awarded to the poor (5985 ETB) and very poor (6025 ETB) (Table 3). Additional jobs that were created for local people, especially after the recently improved forest withdrawal

rights, include the hiring of local people by plantation buyers to guard the area they have bought, harvest the trees, and load logs onto trucks. Finally, devolution helps people working as carpenters mainly by increasing the availability of wood for house construction and furniture making. 4.2.2. Post-delegation changes in capital for vulnerability coping mechanisms and income generation The major vulnerabilities faced by households in the Tutu PA were associated with crop failure, food shortages and health problems, albeit only small proportion of the household have been victims compared to Gare Arera. The major victims of these vulnerabilities, especially those of crop failure and food shortages, were the poor and very poor. Using savings, reducing household consumption and performing labor were the major coping mechanisms for the community. Of these, performing more labor was vital for the poor and very poor, while using savings and reducing household consumption were vital for the rich and middle class. Forest products was an important coping mechanisms only for the poor and very poor. For income generation, farming contributes the bulk of households’ total annual income (75%), followed by fuelwood (13%) and livestock (6%). Fuelwood income is the second largest source of income for the poor (24%) and very poor (32%) after agriculture (Table 2). It is clear that livelihood strategies related to farming, day laborer work, livestock and the forest are important for households

Table 3 Change in important non-forest and forest based capitals after decentralization. Policy

Wealth class

Number of house Pre

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Devolution

Rich Middle Poor V. poor Total Rich Middle Poor V. poor Total

1 1 1.03 0.8 0.95 1.38 1 0.96 0.94 1

2.38** 1.72*** 1.4** 1.13*** 1.45*** 1.5 1.36** 1 1 1.17**

1.66 1.73 0.54 0.46 0.82 4.76 2.76 2.45 1.08 2.19

2.22 1.88 0.74 0.5 0.98 4.76 2.76 2.4 1.21 2.23

5.89 3.32 2.23 1.31 2.44 7.59 4.56 2.65 0.87 2.8

8.01 4.28 2.58 1.4 2.94 19.05*** 12.89*** 7.48*** 3.84*** 8.2***

5.38 2.91 4.7 6.13 5.06 0 0 0.38 2.16 0.99

4.75 3.64 2.17*** 4.43* 3.51** 0 0.29 0.38 1.74 0.87

Delegation

Farm land

Livestock (TLU)

Fuelwood collection

FC dividend

Log for house (% of households)

Training

7300 4956 5985 6026 5877 e e e e e

43 26 26 46 33 e e e e e

2.3 0.77rrr 0.85 rrr 0.71 rrr 0.93 aaa e e e e e

*Mean significant difference between before and after decentralization policy at p < 0.01 (***) or p < 0.05 (**) or p < 0.1 (*). Mean significant difference between wealth categories at p < 0.01 (aaa) or p < 0.05 (aa). Mean significant difference between rich and the wealth class at p < 0.01 (rrr). m Mean significant difference between middle class and the wealth class at p < 0.1 (m). a r

m aa

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in relation to vulnerability exposure and income generation. The average amount of farmland possessed, average number of livestock per household and number of houses possessed increased from 2.19 ha to 2.23 ha; from 2.8 TLU to 8.2 TLU; and from 1 to 1.17, respectively, after delegation. The increment in the number of houses and livestock possessed was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.01). Within wealth categories, the increment in livestock for the rich and the middle class was significantly higher than the increment for the very poor. The increment for the average number of houses possessed was also significantly higher for the middleclass compared to the very poor (p < 0.05) (Table 3). Although these capital improvements in livelihood coincided with the delegation reform, the most important factors for the improvement were increased agriculture crop prices and family land defragmentation. Fuelwood collection is the most important forest product in Tutu, followed by liana and poles for house-building. The total weekly collection of fuelwood for sale declined after delegation. Within wealth categories, it has declined or remained the same for the poor and very poor wealth classes, while it has increased or remained the same for the rich and middle classes. In addition to fuelwood, all Tutu respondents said there has been a decline in all other important forest products since delegation (Table 3). They are not allowed to gather logs from the forest for subsistence or income generation. The major reason for the decline is the restriction on local people’s forest use rights by either the OFWE (100% of respondents) directly or through its hired forest guards (94.81%). In this PA, the only way the current delegation form of decentralization contributes to local livelihoods is through job creation. Although the OWFE created jobs for approximately 1705 employees with total annual salaries and wages of 1,149,427 birr in the last fiscal year for all the villages adjacent to Jibat Forest, the amount per village is very small, as observed in Tutu, where only five people were hired as guards. Additionally, planting in the forest adjacent to the Tutu PA, which may have created job opportunities for the

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people, has been undertaken only once since authority was delegated to the OWFE in 2007. 4.3. Environmental outcomes 4.3.1. Devolution At the early stage of the devolved forest governance, local people developed forest management plans with assistance from the WARDO and NGO. Selected members of the community were also trained on how to undertake different management activities. This management plan, however, was neither implemented nor updated, partly because the project was phased out in 2007 and the community received no additional incentives to implement it (Mohammed and Inoue, 2012b). Although it was not specifically called for in the management plan, local people planted a total of 74,000 seedlings. The majority of the species planted were Grevillea robusta, Cupressus lusitanica and Eucalyptus globules. The trend in forest harvest can be categorized in two time spans, i.e., between 2004 and 2007 and after 2007. Before 2007, when the final decision on income generation by harvesting was made by the WARDO, local people were able to harvest and generate income only once. This decision was made at the early stage of PFM implementation to earn locals’ trust (Mohammed and Inoue, 2012a). After the 2007 transfer of power to the district level offices of OFWE (discussed in detail in Section 4.1.2.), restrictions on selling have become very liberal. The community was able to sell about six times more from the area than they previously sold, and earned approximately 13 times more than before 2007 (Fig. 3). 4.3.2. Delegation The enterprise was found to have little silvicultural information about the forests under its concession. There is no data or survey on the volume, productivity or annual increments that can help manage the forest appropriately. Recently, a plan to inventory

Fig. 3. Forest cover change in Chilimo between 2003e2007 and 2007e2011.

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Fig. 4. Forest cover change in Tutu between 2007 and 2011.

20,600 ha with a budget of approximately 1.6 million birr was created by the head office. The planned inventory is only for those forests that are mostly or fully used for production purposes. Although there is no detailed management plan, the enterprise is actively involved in planting seedlings. In Jibat, a total of 104.5 ha, 164.4 ha and 170.8 ha were planted by the Jibat district of OFWE in 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively. Within this time, the number of indigenous seedlings being planted has been gradually declining. In 2009, 23.7% of the seedlings were indigenous species, which declined to 20.7% in 2010 and 14.3% in 2011. The Jibat district office of the enterprise has also harvested and sold approximately 68 ha of forest area, which is much lower than the 440 ha planted area in the same time. In addition, satellite image analysis and data from key informants has shown that the forest boundary near Tutu was kept intact after delegation as shown in Fig. 4. 4.4. Linking outputs with outcomes in the two cases Analysis of the output from devolution shows that the decision making power to manage and protect the forest has been fully transferred to FC members and leaders. This has had a mixed impact on social and environmental outcomes at the local level. Since FCs took decision making power over the forest’s management and protection, guardianship of the forest from illegal logging improved, according to 96% of the interviewees. Within the FC itself, however, relatively uncontrolled grazing of livestock as well as gradual encroachment into the forest for settlement and agriculture has become prevalent. Consequently, 41% and 39% of FC members mentioned settlement and farmland expansion, respectively, as reasons for the shortage of forest products. Nevertheless, devolution brought positive contributions to the livelihood of local people. Although it may not be the sole determinant factor, the increased income from forest dividends and relaxed grazing inside the forest after the devolution of decision making power on forest guarding contributed to the increased livestock in the community. Increased settlement in the forest also contributed to the significant improvement of the average number of houses possessed. Other factors, such as increased access to poles for building houses and other changes in forest use rights, including income from the sale of plantations after devolution, also contributed to improved housing. Most of these livelihood improvements, however, were polarized towards the upper wealth class. The significant increase in income from plantation sales, which experienced a six-fold increase after 2007, is also explained by the overall change in outputs from the devolution. Only decisions on forest protection and management were fully transferred to FC members, while WARDO limited locals’ requests to harvest the Chilimo Forest for income. After the 2007 power transfer that empowered OFWE, however, decisions on harvesting and selling by local people were met with minimal opposition from the enterprise, which receives 30% of the income generated as per the

agreement. It is this factor that makes the enterprise reluctant toward minimizing income generation from the forest from the ongoing unsustainable forest harvesting. The aforementioned increased plantation sales nonetheless frustrated environmental outcomes. This is because local people can only generate income from plantation sales, which is a major incentive for undertaking other forest governance responsibilities. For example, they must contribute to the conservation of the natural forest, which needs to be preserved for two major reasons. First, it is composed of such species as Podocarpus falcatus, Juniperus procera and Prunus Africana, which are already said to be threatened by extinction. Second, it covers the watershed that provides a shield for the lowland ecosystem. FCs have already sold 98.7 ha (44%) of the total 222.2 ha plantation area. If this trend continues, FCs will soon exhaust the plantation and will have limited incentives to guard and manage the natural forest. This, together with factors outlined above, is an example of tradeoffs between social and environmental outcomes in decentralized forest governance. In Tutu, there was an overall decline in forest access and in the availability of forest-related products after delegation, for the reason that the decision making power on withdrawal rights from the forest in this scheme rests with an enterprise that has no incentive to benefit local people. The power of WLEPO, which has the de jure power to manage economic and development activities, including that of the enterprises, is quite feeble in terms of its social accountability. Its power is neither practically supported by the higher level authorities, nor acknowledged by the offices that WLEPO should keep accountable. 4.5. Contextual factors The preceding section shows that in devolution, which is closer to democratization, the environmental outcomes were frustrating, while in delegation, in which local people were marginalized from decision making, the current environmental outcomes are positive. This contradiction is explained by the context in which these two reforms were implemented. In devolution, the FC’s members were largely marginalized by the government prior to devolution. The only time in recent history that local people were offered withdrawal rights on the forest was 1980, and even these limited rights were taken away in 1982 when the demarcation of national forest priority areas was undertaken. These past experiences have created mistrust between local people and the government. Therefore, it can be said that although efforts to provide leeway for local decision making are important for eliciting positive outcomes from decentralized forest governance, they may not be the immediate optimal fix for balancing conservation needs with utilization interests in such countries as Ethiopia, where peoples’ forest access has been curtailed in the past, and where decision making power is both fragile and insecure. In such contexts, local people may place

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Fig. 5. Synthesis of outputs and outcome from the two cases with scope of APAF and MAPAF.

immediate benefit maximization before sustainable resource management. The other contextual factor contributing to the emphasis on income generation is local vulnerabilities and socio-economic conditions. In Gare Arera, where almost all households have mentioned to have faced shortage of food, the average farm holding is 0.82 ha. This area of farmland is quite small, especially considering that the average number of household members ranges from 5.6 for the very poor to 8.2 for the rich. This, coupled with the low productivity of farmland and problem of failure of agriculture crop that characterizes the recent farming system in Ethiopia, forces people to pursue any opportunity that secures their wellbeing. On the contrary, in Tutu, the average land holding is 2.23 ha, which is much higher than that of Gare Arera. For this reason, the community is a net seller of agricultural crops. The inflation in agricultural crops, especially after the 2008 global economic crisis, has also been a blessing for the community. The increased income from one of their major livelihood sources has decreased their dependency on the forest. In addition, their overall better livelihood capital has helped local people to maintain trees in their farmlands and communal lands. After delegation, local people are utilizing these trees to fulfill their forest product requirement. As a result, there has been neither significant encroachment in the forest nor significant illegal logging, despite locals being prohibited from accessing the forest. The displacement of logging onto their communal and agricultural land due to restrictions on forest access after delegation, however, is a serious environmental outcome concern at the landscape level.

5. Discussion The MAPAF supplements the original APAF developed by Agrawal and Ribot (1999) in three areas: incorporation of property rights, the linkage outputs with outcomes and consideration of contextual factors (Fig. 5). By incorporating the three vital bundles of property rights, i.e., management, exclusion and withdrawal rights (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001), into the original framework, the modified framework creates a common ground for exploring the extent of democratic decentralization in a given decentralization reform (Section 4.1.1 and 4.1.2), as well as comparing different decentralization reforms (4.1.3). The other advantage of MAPAF is its potential to link outputs of decentralization with local level outcomes. Although scholars such as Ribot (2004) have argued that the achievement of democratic decentralization, which we termed output of decentralization, is a measure of its success, this may not always be the case. The major reason for the decentralization of forest governance, particularly in developing nations, is to achieve positive social and environmental outcomes by means other than democratization alone. Democratic decentralization, therefore, is a means that may lead to positive social and environmental outcome, but which does not guarantee them. As shown by the devolution form of decentralization in this research, democratization may not always lead to positive social and environmental outcomes. The devolution form of decentralization is close to democratic decentralization. Its environmental outcomes, however, are unsustainable with increased harvesting of the forest. In addition, the livelihood opportunities created by

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devolution are mainly taken by the upper wealth class. MAPAF, by incorporating outcomes from decentralization, provides room to consider additional policy inputs, such as minimum environmental requirements to supplement democratization in contexts where democratization alone cannot lead to desired outcomes. The inclusion of both social and environmental outcome is also another plus of the modified framework. Researches on impact analysis of decentralized forest governance in developing nation suffer from lack of analysis of both vital outcome parameters. Some researches such as Baland et al. (2010) emphasize on the environmental aspect while others like Tesfaye et al. (2011) accentuate on the social outcome. Nonetheless, such polarized outcome can tell only half of the story. Forest improvement can be achieved with the cost of livelihood of the vulnerable once while on the other side, livelihood can be improved by degrading the forest. The final positive contribution of MAPAF is its consideration of contextual factors. As argued above, democratization is not sufficient for positive social and environmental outcomes. In some contexts, it may lead to positive social outcomes at the cost of positive environmental outcomes, and vice versa; in the worst cases, it may even result in negative social and environmental outcomes. Therefore, it is vital to identify the contextual factors that may favor democratization yielding positive outcomes. In this study, for example, the democratization of forest governance for local people who have been historically marginalized, and who consequently are less trusting of power givers, has yielded poor environmental outcomes in which local people were interested in maximizing their short term economic benefits from the environmental resource. On the other hand, in contexts where other nonforest livelihood capitals were better developed and local people had trees on their farm and communal lands, the environmental outcomes from delegation did not result in negative environmental outcomes for the forest, in spite of the marginalization of local people. 6. Conclusions The Modified Actor-Power-Accountability Framework (MAPAF) posited by this study creates a common ground for exploring and comparing outputs, i.e., the extent of democratization, from different types of decentralization reforms and for linking these outputs with local level social and environmental outcomes. This framework’s particular strength over the original Actor-PowerAccountability framework are its emphasis on the major aspects of forest governance, i.e., decision making power on property rights and linking outputs from decentralization reforms with their outcomes. In addition, the framework creates an opportunity to seek contextual factors that further explain outcomes from a given decentralization reform, especially when democratization fails to lead to positive social and environmental outcomes. The identification of these contextual factors is found to be vital to complement democratization with other interventions needed to attain the desired outcomes. The application of MAPAF to analyze decentralized forest governance in Ethiopia revealed that the devolution form of decentralization is in proximity to democratic decentralization, while in delegation, decision making power on the three key property rights was transferred to higher level actors that are upwardly accountable. Although devolution improved vital capital for local people’s livelihoods, environmental outcomes from it were frustrating. The important contextual factor for the discrepancy between democratization and positive environmental outcomes was the historic marginalization of local people from forest decision making power, which fostered mistrust between the local people and the government. This, coupled by the poor socio-

economic condition of the study site that made local people vulnerable to shortage of basic needs, caused local people to concentrate on immediate benefit maximization from the forest rather than conservation for future use. Hence, in such context, democratization need to be supplemented by other policies such as establishment of mutually agreed minimum environmental standards to be observed by local people as well as policies that target non-forest based livelihood capital improvements, especially for the poor in order to attain environmentally viable forest governance. In the case of delegation, the transfer of power to actors that are distant from local people resulted in their marginalization. Despite this result, the environmental outcomes were found to be positive due to the economic and biophysical context of the locals and their landscape, respectively, that made them less reliant on the forest. This, however, may not guarantee long term sustainability of the forest, especially considering the ample experience at hand now on sustainability problems with forest policies that lacks deliberative democracy, particularly by participating local people. The result, nonetheless, implies that raising the overall socio-economic wellbeing of local people through different rural development interventions can also be a way forward for sustainable forest governance. Although the framework is sound in it potential to analyze and compare decentralized reforms in terms of the level of democratizations as well as social and environmental outcome together with the contextual factors that also influence the outcomes, it still need further application in order to understand the combination of diverse actors, power distribution, accountability relations and contextual factor that together lead to positive social and environmental outcome. Especially, works should be done to comprehend the different contextual factors that do hinder or promote positive social and environmental outcomes from decentralized forest governance. Surely, with additional applications will undoubtedly come refinements and improvement of MAPAF, and that is one principal reason for presenting it in this article. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.03.002. References Acharya, K.P., Dangi, R.B., 2009. Forest degradation in Nepal: Review of Data and Methods. Forest assessment working paper 163. FAO, Rome. Acheson, J., 2006. Institutional failure in resource management. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 35, 117e134. Ackerman, J., 2004. Co-governance for accountability: beyond “Exit” and “Voice.” World Dev. 32 (3), 447e463. Agrawal, A., Ostrom, E., 2001. Collective action, property rights, and decentralization in resource use in India and Nepal. Polit. Soc. 29, 485e514. Agrawal, A., Ribot, J., 1999. Accountability in decentralization: a framework with South Asian and West African environmental cases. J. Dev. Areas 33, 473e502. Andersson, K., Gibson, C.C., 2006. Decentralized governance and environmental change: local institutional moderation of deforestation in Bolivia. J. Policy Anal. Manag. 26 (1), 99e123. Baland, J.M., Bardhan, P., Das, S., Mookherjee, D., 2010. Forests to the people: decentralization and Forest degradation in the Indian Himalayas. World Dev. 38 (11), 1642e1656. Baumann, P., 2002. Improving Access to Natural Resources for the Rural Poor: a Critical Analysis of Central Concepts and Emerging Trends from a Sustainable Livelihoods Perspective. FAO, Rome. Berkes, F. (Ed.), 1989. Common Property Resources: Ecology and Community-based Sustainable Development. Belhaven Press, London. Bromley, D.W. (Ed.), 1992. Making the Commons Work: Theory and Practice. ICSG Press, California. Chambers, R., Conway, G., 1991. Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practical Concepts for the 21st Century. IDS Discussion Paper 296. Institute for Development Studies, Brighton.

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